Do you ever find yourself just saying things that sound totally bizarre to your kids (if you have any)? I do it all the time. “Hey guys! What do you think about making *insert something strange-sounding here*” They pause and think, and either agree with enthusiasm, or go straight for the nooooooooooo. This was one of those times. This time, I got a huge green light. We often make tacos around here, but without shells, because of corn. The kids will eat them on tortillas/wraps, and everyone is happy. We also make what we call Taco Boxes for lunches and road trips. This pizza idea however was totally new, but I figured, it’s like a super giant taco! In the end, it turned out to be one of their favorite new pizzas that I’ve made, so here it is.

I have been trying to sell our Allergy Kid on the idea of fruit pizza for MONTHS. I saw some cool ideas online, and thought the kids would jump at the idea. Turns out, they were thinking traditional cheese pizza topped with fruit and chocolate. Yeah…. that’s gross. Hehe. Once they saw all of the ingredients out, it started to click in their minds just what I was up to. They were all more than happy to help me put them together, and to be my hands since I can’t touch the dough.

Once the pictures had been taken, they devoured all of the cups. In fact, they LOVED these. I wasn’t sure if Kid Three and Kid Four would like them since they used non-dairy yogurt, but they said that was the best part. After a success like this, I’m sure we’ll be trying more variations of this, and you can expect to see a fruit pizza in our Allergy Friendly Pizza Cookbook.

It’s Friday! I don’t know about you, but I always have this “happy let’s party” vibe on Friday mornings. I usually end up making pizza to celebrate. The kids have come to love Friday lunches, and for good reason. Have you seen the other mashed potato creations this week? There were Mashed Potatoes Done Two Ways, and Potato Soup. Well, with the soup leftovers, we made pizza. Kid Two asked me while we worked on the soup if it would be a good idea to ass mashed potatoes to a pizza. Then he said, never-mind, too many carbs. I thought about, and said that because our soup was a little on the pasty side, rather than runny, we could try to use it as a sauce. When ever the kids come up with an idea like this, I try to encourage them by finding a way to make it work. I think it’s something all Food Allergy Parents should try to do, assuming they don’t already. Allergy Kids are just that – kids. They have to live a long lengthy lifetime, so it’s good to train them young to think outside the box. If we can give them a joy for cooking, baking, and all things kitchen related, it will allow them a greater sense of independence when they’re older, and will also help make sure they don’t go hungry. Or get caught in the dreaded trap of being bored from eating the same few meals again and again.

A little note: a lot of our recipes are cane/refined sugar free. The Wholly Wholesome Pizza Dough has a small amount of cane sugar. If you’re GF, DF, EF and need a pizza dough without cane sugar, you can get the Sunny Day Foods Rice/Potato dough, or opt to make your own. Read More

What do you do when there’s no pizza dough thawed? You make Pizza Bread! We’ve gone through a lot of gluten free bread options like many others I’m sure. As of late, we’ve settled on Happy Campers Gluten Free Bread. You’ll notice in the pictures that not all slices are created equally in presentation, however, that hasn’t stopped Kid Two from enjoying it. You may recall that we’ve talked about this bread in the past. He doesn’t love it, and isn’t super excited about sandwiches, but really likes having it when it’s made into something fancy such as garlic bread, cheese bread, open tuna sandwiches/melts, and of course, pizza bread. Oh! And French Toast too. We use to use Udi’s, until we learned about his egg allergy, then simply went cold turkey for a very long time. We knew there were a few others, the brown rice bread, Ener-G bread, and more, but none of them ever came close to a traditional bread. Yet, I am SO thankful there are companies out there trying!

Happy Campers makes a few flavors, but we get the simple one. The quality of the ingredients is great, however, the size of the bread is rather small. It’s the price we pay… figuratively and literally. One of these days, I really am going to try my hand at bread making. Until then, it’s Happy Campers. On to the Pizza Bread.

Fall has really arrived. It was cold last night. Yup, summer is gone now. We were all huddled around the stove this morning… perhaps it’s really winter? Nonetheless, each Monday this month, we will be collaborating with @dana_aversa (Happy Herbivore) on Instagram. Each week, we will both bring you a spectacular way to approach the same dish. This week, it’s pizza!!

We’ve each decided to use squash on our pizzas. I think it’s safe to say that ours is sweet, while Dana’s is savory. She also has a great lentil crust recipe. If you can’t have yeast, be sure to read her methods.

I saw one of the coolest things on the internet: Pizza Pinwheels! I knew I had to try it out. Yeah… about that. I’m going to call this a semi-fail. First, we forgot the cheese. We were so caught up in the rolling of the dough and wanting to get it right, we simply forgot. However, in doing so, we ended up accidentally making something really cool. It resembled a cross between a hoagie and a sub sandwich. I don’t know what to call it anymore, except Kid Two says to call it delicious. What it lacks in looks, it makes up for in effort and flavor. Hope this inspires you to crease something great! Read More

Just sharing some recent things the kids and I have made in the kitchen. Nothing was measured, but I’ve put in some notes in hopes to spark the creativity within you 🙂 I’ve included both the allergy free and allergy versions of what was made.

Wholly Wholesome Pizza Dough. It’s Top-8 Free, and Kid Two loves it. We use to get the Kinnikinnick one, but it’s covered in corn. This doesn’t have as much corn, but I still have to use the mask when making it. Personally, the cost is starting to get to me. At $7.50 a package, which is 2 servings for him, I’m ready to reverse engineer a more affordable version.

Kid Three was so intrigued, and really wanted to know what a calzone was. Like with many other things, I told him to look it up. Yes, I’m one of those parents. He was SO happy to help with dinner once he knew what it was. The best part for me was when each of his siblings asked what a calzone was, he was quick to tell them to look it up 🙂 He also likes to say that these are short for “calorie zone”.

Just a fair warning, the final product is not perfect in looks. As you know, I can’t touch, eat, or smell the food, so the kids did all of the touching for me. This means the kids made them with their own little hands with lots of love.

So I decided to try something TOTALLY different tonight, and the results were very interesting. Here’s what the eaters had to say:

Kid Two (allergy free) ~ I could have used a little less bacon, and even though the cheese melted funny, I really liked the pizza.

Kid Three (allergen eater) ~ It was a bit wet and drippy, but I loved it. If I could change anything, I would make the sauce more pasty like what we normally do.

Kid Four (allergen eater) ~ Seriously, this was the best pizza I’ve ever eaten. I went back for seconds.

The Papa (allergen eater) ~ Eat it with a fork and you won’t have to worry about it falling apart. It’s not a traditional pizza, and it doesn’t cut very well, but it’s WELL worth it because it tastes delicious. The combination of flavors is really nice.

In the end, we all agreed that the sauce is where I went wrong, however, they all felt that it was still good to eat, just runny. I asked them about serving the mix as a pasta instead, and everyone still wanted it as is, as a pizza. On to the recipe and photos! Read More

I’ve been experimenting with pizza a lot lately that can be made corn free. This time, I wanted to try to make a pizza crust all on my own. It wasn’t the best on the planet when you compare it to what’s commercially available, however, I felt it was a very solid attempt considering its free from status. Feel free to jazz it up a bit, or even experiment with yeast to add rise. For the crust, I found this basic crust recipe at http://easypizzacrusts.com/nypc.html I did make slight modifications… Read More